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Live grenade found in Pelham home

By Robert Mills, rmills@lowellsun.com

Posted:
06/15/2014 11:14:30 PM EDT

PELHAM -- The intersection of Bridge and Main streets was closed for more than an hour Sunday evening after a man who was helping his mother clean her basement found a live grenade with the pin already halfway out, according to police.

Sgt. Anne Perriello said police were called to 88 Bridge St., a home on the corner of the intersection with Main Street, at 7:43 p.m., when Charles Pickwell, 43, found the grenade in his mother's basement.

The grenade was stored inside a canister that Pickwell had opened.

"He located a grenade canister and recognized it from his days in the military," Perriello said. "He opened it assuming it wasn't a live grenade, and located a rusted-out, live, pineapple grenade with the pin half out of it."

Perriello said Pickwell immediately carried the grenade out of his mother's house and called 911.

Because the home and the grenade were close to the road, police set up a perimeter, evacuated two nearby homes and closed the intersection.

"The motoring public wasn't happy with us at first, but we got the intersection reopened as soon as we safely could," Perriello said.

Pelham police contacted the Nashua Police Bomb Squad, which secured the grenade and took it to undisclosed location, where it will be detonated, according to Perriello.